Fool Me Twice

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation.

[...]

"There are things he has said, and I want to see how well he has complied with it," Specter said, singling out Roberts.

The Specter inquiry poses a potential political problem for the GOP and future nominees because Democrats are increasingly complaining that the Supreme Court moved quicker and more dramatically than advertised to overturn or chip away at prior decisions.

  Politico

So, they were okay with it if it took longer? What's the problem? I thought Democrats were supposed to like activist judges.

"The reality is, although John Roberts and Samuel Alito promised to follow precedent, they either explicitly or implicitly overruled precedent," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a Duke University law professor.

"It is important to point out how the confirmation hearings were a sham. There is nothing you can do about it now; they are there for life. But it is important as we look to future hearings."

So, essentially, Specter is wasting everybody's time. Neither judge swore he wouldn't reverse previous decisions, and they're already on the bench. There's an old Texas adage (to borrow from a recent Bush speech - and this is just as much an old Texas adage as whatever he said) that there's no sense closing the barn door after the horse has already gotten out.

A review could put "judges on notice that they can't come in front of the Judiciary Committee, say one thing and leave one impression, and then go out and do another." [Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif)]

Oh, yeah. A review will really put the fear of God in them.

Specter says he'll get to that review as soon as he "gets a spare moment." So maybe he's not going to waste any more time than it took him to catch some headlines and take some print away from the Gonzales story.

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush "except in extraordinary circumstances."

  Politico

There's an old Texas adage....

Senators were too quick to accept the nominees’ word that they would respect legal precedents, and "too easily impressed with the charm of Roberts and the erudition of Alito," Schumer said.

"There is no doubt that we were hoodwinked."

Yes, but it's so easy to do.

Schumer said there were four lessons to be learned from Alito and Roberts: Confirmation hearings are meaningless, a nominee’s record should be weighed more heavily than rhetoric, "ideology matters" and "take the president at his word."

"When a president says he wants to nominate justices in the mold of [Antonin] Scalia and [Clarence] Thomas," Schumer said, "believe him."

Was there somebody who didn't believe him?

If Congress didn't know before Alito and Roberts that a person's record is worth more than his rhetoric, they're a sad lot indeed. But that would explain a lot.

And confirmation hearings are meaningless only when Congress is so easily "hoodwinked."

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.